What to say about myself? I'm a middle-aged male, living in the Mid-Western United States. But enough about me!

Like many other contributors here, I fancy myself a writer. In fact, for me the biggest appeal of this sight is the familiarity of so many tropes — not because I've seen them, but because I've used them myself (see below).

Ever since my first appearance here in late June 2007 I have spent much time poking around, familiarizing myself, sticking my two cents into discussion threads where it's not wanted, and occasionally launching actual tropes — although these days I'm mostly content to add Works and Creator pages.

As stated, I am an amateur writer, having co-written a collection of not-entirely-serious adventure stories centered around a team of super-powered/high-tech government agents. The no-doubt innumerable tropes which we have employed in these stories include (but are likely not limited to):

Cool Plane: Redhawk. It's as long as a football field, has a cargo bay big enough for all the Cool Cars, and can even go underwater or into outer space.

Cool Starship: Eventually, the team acquires (read: steals) a spaceship from an alien colony and brings it back to Earth. The aforementioned Redhawk and Flying Cars would also qualify.

Creator Provincialism: Reversed; although we've written one story that takes place in our own hometown, most of them are set in places we've never been and likely will never visit. Thank goodness for Google Earth!

"Oh please! Like that plot wasn't done to death on The A-Team or Knight Rider! We're starting to sound like some cheezy 80s action-TV show!" "This is not a television show. This is, for us at least, reality."

"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: Our very first story — written some 20 years ago in high school — featured a Take That-ish Lawyer-Friendly Cameo by Corey Feldman, and we even managed to throw Corey Haim in there as well ("We always do everything together," Haim said good-naturedly). Haim's death in 2010 really put the kibosh on that joke.

Hint Dropping: Subverted: "It was one of those subtle little hints women always give men that they miss like Lucy in the outfield. However, he had been trained by his wife to catch all such hints. He had the bruises to prove it."

"Halt! Who are you and what are you doing here?" "We're the cleaning crew." "Cleaning crew? I haven't seen the lot of you before." "We're new." "What about the kid?" "What about him? He's my son." "I mean, what's he doing here? Most people don't bring their kids to work with them." "He always comes to work with me. Also, most people don't bring their children with them when breaking into super-secret military installations, do they?" "Uh-huh. So where are your IDs?" "Uhhhhh..."

Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Early stories were notorious for always including at least one celebrity, his/her identity merely hinted at, and usually encountered in a not-so-flattering situation. The most blatant of these was a villain named for a certain former First Lady (I won't name names), or a group of villains who were thinly-veiled caricatures of our high school faculty.

Character Magnetic Team / Debut Queue: We started this thing with seven main characters; then each new story introduced one or two new main characters (not recurring, main), until we now have thirteen main characters and a good collection of recurring characters as well.

Mood Whiplash: Due to the mix of comedy and action, this is sometimes unavoidable. Lampshaded at least once ("How could such a goofy moment have led directly into a life-or-death situation like this?").

We've parodied this trope in other ways as well. For instance: "We'd like to take a moment to point out that these people are MORONS! Their logic is quite FLAWED! Please, please, don't ever stalk someone, brainwash her, lead her to her death, and call it love! We now return you to the same mindless crap you've been reading for the past 300 pages or so."

No Fourth Wall / Medium Awareness: The main characters are aware that they are living in a fictional medium and often argue with the narrator/writers, or hijack the story. Handwaved by the characters calling it "a delusion we all live under".

There's the bit about always making a sandwich every time someone goes into the kitchen.

Each story usually has its own unique Running Gag; in fact, the two gags listed above started out this way before being expanded to encompass the whole series.

Samus is a Girl: One wife dons her husband's Powered Armor to come save the day. When her gender is revealed, cue the predictable juvenile humor:

Sinister Geometry: Reversed; the "good guy" aliens in the back story flew starships of simple geometric shape and the "bad guy" aliens flew starships that look like enormous daggers stabbing an orange slice.

But also played straight, as the "good guys"' starfighters were styled somewhat like avians and the bad guys' fighters look like cigars.

"Why do the writers think we're sappy wimps and always give us these cry-baby scenes?" "I don't know. Maybe they're making up for something. You can tell these guys have never been married."

There's also:

"Your son's conspiracy theory is becoming more plausible by the moment." "Or the writers are taking narcotics." The writers threatened to erase his character out of existence if he didn't shape up.

Wig, Dress, Accent: The team doesn't do a whole lot of this sort of undecover operation, but they still manage to pull it off on occasion.

Women Are Wiser: Zig-zagged; the women on the team have more common sense in one finger than all the men combined, but they are given plenty of "goofy" moments on their own (usually when isolated from the guys).

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